


The First to Find Her

by Wondering_Writer



Series: Carmen Sandiego One-Shots [1]
Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s02e08 The Stockholm Syndrome Caper, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 01:43:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21153518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wondering_Writer/pseuds/Wondering_Writer
Summary: Julia knows she's right about Carmen Sandiego--the woman herself all but admitted it by omission. So, she'll follow her gut instincts one more time.





	The First to Find Her

"Freeze!" Agent Zari's voice bounces off city hall's walls, loaded as the click of a pulled trigger.

Or maybe Julia's heart simply stops of its own accord. The air she drags into her lungs on instinct tastes sharp and cold enough to burn.

This can't--is Zari disobeying orders? Does she trust Julia so little that--

"Trust you, huh?" Carmen's sneakers squeak on the floor. Her voice is light, venomous.

No, no, no-- "No! It's not what it looks like!"

_ Carmen, I swear it isn't--Chief wouldn't-- _

And then two more agents, guns drawn, step out into the sunlight streaming from floor to ceiling stained glass.

The world caves in when Carmen starts running for the stairs, three ACME coats on her tail.

_ A red bat against the Poiters night--the dazzling Rio sun--bones made of alloy and skin made of synthetic cloth. Carmen Sandiego is flying, free, invincible. _

_ Beautiful. _

Julia starts running too.

The Swedish winter air would be a slap to the face if her lungs weren't already brittle. She skids through the snow onto the street, running like her shoes were made to scarce kiss the ground. Another agent's ACME car gleams dark blue down the street. Her fingers shake as she digs for her key. A swipe of the tiny fingerprint reader on the chain, and the car unlocks with a flash of lights and a near-silent click.

She throws herself into the driver's seat, shuts the cold out with a window-rattling slam, and starts the car. Her hands are at ten and two, her eyes trained on the bell tower.

_ Her eyes stay trained on that small, crimson-painted smile. The sunlight from the train window bathes tan skin in alluring orange and gold, steel eyes so soft and so attentive. _

_ Chief's eyes are solemn, serious, and for a moment it feels like they're in the same room. "You get one chance, Agent Argent. I'll inform the team." _

One chance--she didn't even get that.

_ "You're not really dressed for the occasion but we'll make it work." Gentle hands tug her suit jacket open, reholster her gun. "Come on, I need your help." _

Her hands ache, the pop of her knuckles shivering up her arm like an ancient, wretched thing. Why are her eyes hot? When did her heartbeat get so loud?

She sees red and floors it.

* * *

Julia's stomach drops when she sees Carmen start to dip close to the treeline. It disappears with the last glimpse of red among green.

Carmen crashed. Carmen crashed.  _ Carmen crashed. _

The car winds higher up the mountain road, her eyes straining toward the sprawling pine and snow. Every second feels like an hour.

And then she spies a vermillion hanglider mangled beyond repair at the lip of a snowy pit.

She doesn't stop to think, just pulls over, turns the car off, and grabs what she needs--a duffle bag under the back seat, a first aid kit in the glove compartment. The duffle goes over her shoulder, heavy but manageable. 

She's at the railing separating the road and snow at the mountain base before she can blink. The climbing harness is a simple thing, like a belt for the stomach with leg holes for invisible trousers. A thousand-foot spool of steel cable is at her disposal. She tries to remember every step of her climbing training.

_ Feed enough of it through the anchor attached to an immovable solid. The dirt between steel bars and the road will have to do. I can't reach rock from here without risking a fall. Double-knot the cable's end through the loop at the waist. Leave enough dangling to easily undo the knot. Plant feet firmly on the jumping off point--Oh, God, the railing is slick. Breathe, Julia. _

_ And jump. _

The friction of the cable burns through her gloves, sure and solid even as she struggles to find her footing for a moment. Quickly enough, though, she's putting one foot behind the other, casting cautious glances over her shoulder to judge her next foothold and the distance left.

When her soles touch snow, her stomach flips. All she has to do is find Carmen. Get her patched up. Explain the situation.

_ If she'll even let me near her--or if she isn't... _

Julia swallows the thought and starts walking toward the pit. It's harder to climb down, the solid snow nonetheless fragile, but she manages. Industrial grade boots are--

" _ Carmen _ _!_"

_ Please be alive--please--please--please-- _

The woman in red is surrounded by broken branches, on a bed of impacted snow. She groans, low and anguished, when Julia turns her over, and Julia winces. Carmen's suffered several abrasions on her hands and face, auburn hair stiff with ice and blood. She is breathing, but the breaths are short, wincing things that suggest damage sustained to the ribs. Her crimson parka has several large rips in it, though at least none of her limbs look broken.

_ She really is the luckiest woman in the world. _

Julia swallows past the bittersweet lump in her throat, turns to the duffle she doesn't recall throwing down in the snow. The snow chills her knees through her waterproof trousers, but she doesn't care, she needs--

\--Carmen groans again, petering out into soft, breathy squeaks.

Julia turns to find hazy steel eyes scanning their surroundings, a shaking hand halfway to her bleeding head.

It takes all of five seconds for Carmen's eyes to find her, fluttering into sluggish focus. Her face contorts with the effort, eyes still glassy even as that effort changes to whiplashed anger.

" _ You _ _._" The growl isn't fierce, pained and woozy as Carmen's voice is.

Julia still flinches, bringing her hands up empty, fingers splayed wide. "I'm not here to hurt or arrest you, Miss Sandiego."

" _ I'm not an idiot, Julia!"  _ Between ragged breaths and agonized gasps directed to the snow, Carmen struggles to roll onto knees and elbows. She spits multilingual curses. "Where's the rest of your crew?"

A knife twists in Julia's chest at her name, and when she looks down to ensure the blade isn't real, she can't look back up. "We were both setup."

"Sure." It's a snappish, bitten syllable, and Julia feels tears prickle at her eyes as something else snaps.

" _ _I_ said we were both setup _ _!_ I put myself on the line, begging Chief to give me the chance tor a private face-to-face! She always praised me for my intuition regarding our case against you! I thought--I thought…" She's breathing too hard, too fast, the navy blue of her trousers blurred with the snow. Her hands are fists on her lap. "...I thought she was starting to believe me when I said you were good. She gave me her word ACME wouldn't interfere with the meeting, gave me the lead on this entire operation over the comms, even. All I wanted was to assure you we could work together, and now your hurt."

For a long moment, her tirade's sole answer is the falling snow. Then, there's a shuffle and a half-wheezed growl. When Julia looks up, tears freezing on her cheeks, Carmen has staggered to her feet. An arm curls protectively around her ribs, eyes closed against the agony and teeth grit. She can't seem to manage standing completely upright.

When one silver eye cracks open to meet her obsidian ones, the ghost of La Femme Rouge's confident smirk twists with her burden. "Hurt's a bit of--ah--an understatement."

"Let me help you, please. It's my fault your in this state to begin with!" She's on her feet, the crystals of her tears dashed on her gloves. Her fists tremble against her thighs, wanting to reach out with nowhere to touch.

Both of Carmen's eyes open, and for a moment, something fragile and soft breaks through the tide of strain and brain damage. "Sure thing, Jules. You can start by telling me how we're going to get out of here."

Her knees nearly give out with the weight of relief. "Y-yes! I have a steel cable line secured that will take us to the road, where I have a car waiting."

Carmen huffs something almost a laugh, all fondness and sleepy warmth. "Smart girl. Lead the way--it isn't getting any warmer."

She does. If there's a bit of an extra, less urgent spring in her step, sue her.

Julia makes quick yet cautious work of retracing her path down the icy slope. When she turns a few steps from the pit's lip, fingers ready to untie and toss the steel cable, she freezes. 

"Miss Sandiego, be careful!"

Carmen is climbing a few paces slower, teeth sunk into her lip so hard to muffle noises of pain that Julia can't distinguish blood from lipstick. The tan woman stops, wheezing and flashing her the briefest uptick of her lips. Damn it all if the panicked butterflies in Julia's stomach don't lessen, even when Carmen starts on the final stretch of the climb.

But her fingers fumble on the less solid snow of ground-level, and Julia is right there to catch her before she falls. Hoisting up the taller woman by her wrists is a Herculean ordeal for them both. By the end of it, Julia is doubled over, out of breath with hands on her knees. Carmen is curled in on herself, gasping like she's forgotten what breathing is and trying to blink away the tears that fight to spill from her eyes.

"Player's...going to kill me...if I broke them again."

Julia tucks those tidbits of information away with the mental note to start weightlifting. When they both can breathe and Carmen dares to roll over, she says, "I'm afraid there's another climb--much smaller, but we'll have to get over the road's safety railing. Can you manage that?"

"Sure, Jules...easy peasy."

And it is easy--easy enough for Carmen to hoist herself halfway over the rail, one leg, and then tumble to the road in a tangle of limbs.

Julia bites her tongue, crouching and offering her hands to help pick the other woman up. When Carmen lets her slip an arm across her shoulders and reaches to return the gesture, Julia counts it a victory.

It's a slow-going hobble to the car. Carmen bleeds too much heat and breathes too shallow. By the time Carmen is wrangled into the passenger side, the restocked duffle bag a cautious divide between them, Julia can almost imagine Carmen will let herself go to a hospital.

"Is this an ACME car?"

There's no heat to the question, but Julia winces regardless. "They can't track us unless vocal communication is initiated by both sides. It's too risky to use conventional beading methods on an army of vehicles and agents leased to someplace nonexistent."

She hears the cautious lick of lips over the engine's purr, the heater's hum. "How do you know they aren't still lying to you?"

"I…" Another imaginary knife sinks in, this time in her gut, and her hands grip the steering wheel for all their worth. She pulls away from the shoulder, driving without direction. "...I don't. But this is our only option at the moment. You need serious medical attention, Miss Sandiego."

A spark of fire enters steel, the curl of Carmen's lips into a frown, and then there's softness--sadness--again. "You said I'm good."

"What?"

"You said I'm good--helped me with the Fashion Fest caper."

"I--yes, of course." And, because that doesn't seem like answer enough. "You gave me the Magna Carta--after a minute-long conversation!"

She still can't wrap her head around that particular bit. Surely, Carmen saw Deavinux's briefcase on the seat next to her.

Carmen laughs, weak and throaty, and only winces a little for her trouble. "I like a good conversation partner?"

Julia shakes her head. "You trust me, so I trust you." 

_ You listen to me. _

"Do you trust ACME?" The name is poison on Carmen's tongue, an anger Julia can feel isn't directed at her.

Julia swallows. "After today…"

She looks at Carmen, takes in the blood-dried nicks and scrapes and gashes. Takes in the short jerks of her breathe, the glaze in her eyes.

The anguish must show on her face, because Carmen pries her arm from her side to drape stiff, too cold fingers on her knee. She gives Julia that smile she had on the train in Mumbai, the one that was fragile and content and attentive--

"Do you really want to work with me?"

"Yes!" The word is out so fast, Julia scarce has the breath to carry it. Her eyes are flickering more to Carmen than toward the road. "That's all I want."

"Then why don't you come with me? See the world with me--stop VILE with me? If it's money you're worried about, there's plenty to go around on Team Red."

Team Red.

She remembers that night in the bowels of Fashion Fest--the burgundy hat Carmen put on her head--the redhead twins, Carmen in that illegally good-looking red dress.

She remembers the look Carmen gave her as they gravitated towards each other, pride and praise and confidence all in a single smile.

She remembers, for the first time in her life,  _ belonging. _

"...We can talk about job offers after we get word from a doctor that you'll see tomorrow, Miss Sandiego."

The heat of her want must paint her pale freckles, because Carmen laughs again. "Call me Carmen, Jules."

Jules...a Jule among thieves.

She can't help but match that intoxicating, easy smile. A laugh bubbles up her throat. "We can talk about job offers tomorrow, Carmen."

She's already got an answer in mind.


End file.
